LONDON, March 30: Former British foreign secretary Robin Cook, who quit his senior government post in protest at military action in Iraq, has called for British troops to be pulled out of the war in the Gulf.

Cook, the most senior in a series of resignations from Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government over the war, said in an outspoken interview with the Sunday Mirror that the US-led military action risked stoking a “long term legacy of hatred” against the West.

“I have already had my fill of this bloody and unjust war. I want our troops home and I want them home before more of them are killed,” he told the newspaper in an interview.

“There will be a long term legacy of hatred for the West if the Iraqi people continue to suffer from the effects of the war we started.”

Cook, who quit his cabinet post as Leader of the Commons two weeks ago, is the most high profile government member to call for troops to be brought home 10 days into the conflict.

He also criticised US President George W. Bush for starting a war in Iraq on the assumption that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s army would quickly capitulate and victory would be swift.

“Nobody should start a war on the assumption that the enemy’s army will co-operate. But that is exactly what President Bush has done,” he said.

Cook warned of the dangers of besieging the Iraqi capital Baghdad and urged the US army to consider other tactics.

“There is no more brutal form of warfare than a siege. People go hungry. The water and power to provide the sinews of a city snap. Children die.” Cook’s resignation was one of the biggest political blows of the Iraq crisis for Blair, who suffered a massive rebellion within his own Labour party on the parliamentary vote to go to war.

At the time of his resignation, Cook said he was going because it was “wrong to embark on military action without broad international support.”—Reuters